The mistrial in Bill Cosby's sexual assault case, the result of which prompted Cosby to exclaim Fat Albert's catchphrase "Hey hey hey!" while exiting the courtroom, further soiling all of our memories.

The incredibly unpopular AHCA Take Two, accompanied by a fitting graphic of the GOP logo with a blue skull superimposed with stars for eyes. Of the version passed by the House, Trump (who held a presentation where he celebrated its passing) was quoted as saying it was "mean," the irony entirely lost on him. Its very existence is causing problems in insurance markets, as companies decide if they want to pull out of the current markets or not.

And Now: Things People's Fathers Used To Say

Main Story: Coal, coal mining jobs, coal executives, coal mining companies, executives of coal companies, and Donald Trump's fixation on the mineral, discussed divorced of its (tremendous) ecological toll. Eventually the story comes around to involving a giant squirrel.... YouTube (24m)

Rep. Mark Sanford: "At times in life it's important to call an ace, 'an ace.'"

Former Gov. Mike Huckabee: "Son, don't look too far up the family tree. There's some stuff up there you don't need to see." (Personal aside: any time someone says "you don't need to see" something, you probably need to see it.)

(unnamed on Fox News) "If you draw a circle and shut me out, I'm going to draw a bigger circle and shut you in."

Rep. Alcee Hastings: "'It's Wednesday all day long unless it rains.' I never knew what would happen if it rained. I guess it would just be Rainy Wednesday."

Coal: "Cocaine for Thomas the Tank Engine."
Bob Murray: "I'm not going to say he looks like a geriatric Dr. Evil, even though he clearly does."

Ah, and now we get to the material on coal....

Scott Pruitt, Trump's EPA Administrator, claims on Meet The Press that his administration has added 50,000 jobs in the "coal sector," and in the month of May alone, "almost 7,000 jobs." The statement was made on June 4. Politifact rated it Mostly False.

The show notes that the coal industry employs 76,000 people, while struggling retailer JC Penny employs 114,000. The size of the US Work Force is is about 159,784,000, so coal jobs are 0.0048% of that. (Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics)

Coal exec Bob Murray, of Murray Energy, on Obama (all quotes from Fox News): "Barack Obama and his Democrat follwers are destroying entire segments of America." "Mr. Obama is an outlaw." "I pray every day that this man's incompetence will be overcome. That his evil agenda will be overcome." "When you have a 52-year-old coal miner in your office crying, because you were forced to lay him off" ... "that's what Obama has never seen, because he's never had a job." (That statement is false, at the very least he was a law professor.) LWT cited a paper from the Center on Global Energy Policy published a paper, "Can Coal Make A Comeback," in determining that coal's decline is largely due to other factors including competition from natural gas and renewable sources.

Don Blankenship, formerly of Massey Energy, has a good amount of video decrying him on YouTube. There are clips that have his speech at the "Friends of America Rally" presented on the show, which can be found on the YouTube user page for FriendsofAmericaR. For more information on Don Blankenship, there's the Mother Jones article The Epic Rise and Fall of America's Most Notorious Coal Baron.

Correction, "Bob Massey" should probably be "Bob Murray" in the Wilbur Ross bulletpoint.posted by JHarris at 5:38 PM on June 21, 2017

It's a terrible idea for the subject of one of Last Week Tonight's segments to try to tell John Oliver not to make fun of or criticize them. It's inadvisable in a "pouring gasoline on a tire fire" kind of way.posted by orange swan at 7:35 PM on June 21, 2017 [7 favorites]

The Daily Beast hosts the text of Murray's suit, although frustratingly it only allows for online viewing unless one wants to copy-and-paste each page of badly OCR'd text out of it. But still, the beginning of it at least it makes for fine reading. Most of page 2 is a sob story claiming that Murray needs an oxygen tank to live and doesn't expect to live to see the end of the case. Page 5 begins a tirade against Hillary Clinton and the defendants' "anti-coal agenda." Murray's cease-and-desist is framed as them helpfully pointing LWT towards studies backing up their worldview.posted by JHarris at 8:54 AM on June 22, 2017

I went ahead and copied out the text (which as I said is badly OCR'd and thus full of misspellings) and put it into a text file here.posted by JHarris at 12:10 PM on June 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

Only just caught up on this (LWT broadcasts late Monday evenings in the UK, so Mrs Clanger and I usually watch it on catch-up on Tuesdays, but for various reasons have only just got around to doing so this week.)

Here is the PDF of the complaint. Had to dig around on The Daily Beast's site to find it.posted by DJWeezy at 9:32 AM on June 23, 2017 [2 favorites]

Could I just say I deeply and totally support Trumps obsession with the mining industry, because just imagine if he seriously decide to mix it up in world affairs and gets a few nice wars going in the south china sea, Philippines (send marines to kill drug dealers?), or other regions. Basically a relatively small distraction that's going away anyway via market forces and it could be SO MUCH WORSE.posted by sammyo at 9:24 AM on June 24, 2017